Archive for
June, 2007

How do you go about choosing a web host? (That is – a company who will host your website.)

There are so many web hosts to chose from, you could spend an eternity working out your detailed requirements and criteria, and then comparing them with hundreds of web hosts, and finally making your selection.

But you’d probably like to get on with your life, right?

I was faced with that problem when I set up this blog. If you want your blog to help drive traffic to another site, which is the case with me, it’s best for your blog to be on a different IP address to your site – which usually means finding another web host.

My requirements were simple:

Low cost

Very reliable

That’s it!

If later on I needed extra bandwidth or storeage, or to host additional domains – I was prepared to upgrade if needs be.

There are lots of other criteria I could have stated (cPanel, Fantastico, php, other technical stuff that I don’t usually need to know about), but generally, all good web hosts provide all that stuff as standard.

Well, I’m pleased to report that after thorough and extensive research (10 minutes!), I found the nirvana of hosting! (I didn’t quite appreciate it at the time….).

Very simply, I found a list of sites recommended by WordPress for hosting WordPress blogs, and picked their top recommendation.

Given the price ($6.95/month), and the recommendation, there was no real reason not to.

Then I found I could host 6 domains on the account. Nice bonus!

And I get 3000 GB of bandwidth per month and 300 GB of space. It feels like I’m getting a huge warehouse to store my cardboard box in!

So I was happy.

Then two things happened to make me even happier.

The day after my account was set up, I got a telephone call from the company ensuring that everything was fine, and asking me to enter a code into the site! Now that’s unusual for any company, let alone an online company.

Personal touch and a security measure all at the same time.

And to cap it all, I received an email from an experienced IMer (ed Charcow) saying he’d just moved all his sites from two other hosting companies to Blue Host!

Maybe you’ll find a better deal out there – but how hard do you have to look?
And how will you be sure about it?

[Updated 9 Jun 07: My copy of Tim Ferriss’ ground-breaking book – The 4-Hour Work Week – arrived today and I’ve been working my way through it avidly. Lo and behold – I find that Tim also recommends Blue Host . Looks like it’s becoming a no-brainer!]

Although I’ve been around the Internet for many years, I kept putting off starting a blog.

Yes – I know that it’s a great traffic generator, but it all seemed too much trouble and too complicated!

But I did overcome my inertia, and two weeks ago I finally got round to starting a blog (as you can see!). I was encouraged to do so by the reviews of a new product – Blog with Success - by Shannon Herod. The reviews suggested that Blog with Success would make it easy for someone with no blogging experience to start a blog – easily!

What also appealed to me about the product was that, along with a comprehensive, step-by-step manual, Shannon provides a collection of excellent Plug Ins, and full instructions on how to instal and congifure them.

AND he provides video explanations as well!

I got the product before he created the videos, and found it very easy – and quick – simply to follow the screen shots in the PDF. (I personally much prefer screen shots to videos – I find it much faster to work with.)

So, obviously, I highly recommend Shannon’s Blog with Success kit to anyone considering starting a blog: not only will it get you up and running in the shortest possible time – but it will also get you set up for maximum optimization to attract traffic without you needing to understand much of what’s going on.

Just how I like it!

That said, I can now look at blogs that have going for years and quickly spot some obvious things they are missing in relation to traffic attraction – so I’ve obviously learned a lot during the short period since starting my blog.